by Warhammer
Sathphren looked at him. ‘They say Nagash devoured the other gods of the dead, and added their might to his own.’
‘Yes, that is what they say.’ Judd shrugged. ‘And yet, what is death to a god?’ He scooped up a handful of dust, and let the wind pull it from his hand. ‘Dust, and less than dust.’ He sighed and looked at Sathphren. ‘But that is a matter for another day. For now, we will fulfil our oath to you. We will lead you where you wish to go.’
Sathphren nodded solemnly. ‘I expected no less.’ He laughed suddenly and turned Gwyllth about, towards the sounds of fighting. ‘But first – our task is not yet done. There are still daemons to hunt, and an oasis to free. As I promised.’
About the Author
Josh Reynolds is the author of the Horus Heresy Primarchs novel Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix, and two audio dramas featuring the Blackshields: The False War and The Red Fief. His Warhammer 40,000 work includes Lukas the Trickster and the Fabius Bile novels Primogenitor and Clonelord. He has written many stories set in the Age of Sigmar, including the novels Shadespire: The Mirrored City, Soul Wars, Eight Lamentations: Spear of Shadows, the Hallowed Knights novels Plague Garden and Black Pyramid, and Nagash: The Undying King. His tales of the Warhammer old world include The Return of Nagash and The Lord of the End Times, and two Gotrek & Felix novels. He lives and works in Sheffield.
An extract from Hallowed Knights: Black Pyramid.
Shyish was a place of bitter endings and silent decay.
Graveyards that had once been cities dotted a landscape broken by war, their streets lost to shadows and dust. Carrion birds circled the high places, and jackals haunted the low. And everywhere was dusty silence.
The city of Caddow was no different. It sprawled across the Sea of Dust like a broken corpse. Its once-mighty eyries were reduced to jagged ruin, and the stones of its high walls had fallen and lay scattered for leagues. Dust-barques that had once carried holds of spices and damask lay forgotten in dune-swallowed docklands, and the palaces of the mighty were home now only to night-birds and hoofed beasts. A forest of stone rose where once a city had thrived. Silent and forgotten.
‘Uzkul-ha!’
As the cry echoed over the broken city, the night erupted in fire. Long dragon-tongues of red-and-orange flame licked out, scoring the darkness. Startled flocks of carrion birds rose skyward.
‘Uzkul-ha!’
Another crash of voices, another ripple of fire. Broken, twisted shapes slumped or were thrown back into the dust, their unnatural flesh steaming. Nightmarish creatures, part man, part animal, clad in rotting damask and tarnished gold, fell back from the high, steep steps of the black pyramid. They howled and gibbered as they retreated, sounding much like the beasts they resembled.
‘Gazul-akit-ha!’ A single voice bellowed, as the echoes of fire faded.
‘Uzkul! Uzkul! Uzkul!’ came the shouted response, echoing out over the shattered grandeur of the city. Fifty duardin voices, raised in defiance. Raised in prayer. The constant thump of a pommel stone against the inner rim of a shield accompanied the words. Funerary bells began to ring, slow and dolorous. Iron-shod feet stamped in a mournful rhythm.
The Gazul-Zagaz began to sing. A dirge of mourning, for the dead yet to be. Singing their souls to the deep caverns of Gazul, the Lord of Underearth, who was dead himself. All things died and walked in the deep, even gods. That was the way of it. But what was death to a god? ‘Dust, and less than dust,’ Gnol-Tul said softly, as he stroked the thick spade of salt-and-pepper beard that spilled down over his barrel chest.
Like all duardin, he was built like a cask of ale, with thick arms and legs. Age had not dimmed his vigour, though he’d seen more centuries than he had fingers. He looked on in satisfaction as his kinband shouted their song into the teeth of the enemy. Though there were only fifty of the Pyredrakes, they were worth three times that.
Clad in coats and cowls of burnished gromril, each of his warriors wore a steel war-mask wrought in the shape of a skull, and carried a baroque drakegun. Besides the hand cannons, each duardin was armed with a square pavise shield, which doubled as both bulwark and firing stand, and a heavy, flat blade, suitable for butchery and little else.
At that moment, the shield wall stretched across the southern tier of the ziggurat, protecting two lines of Pyredrakes. The first line would fire then step back to reload, allowing the second rank to take their place. A hoary strategy, but effective. Tul thought the old ways of war were often the best, and served against the disorganised rabble below well enough. Beastkin had little in the way of tactical acumen. They were savage and strong, but strength alone was as dust against iron and fire.
So had it always been, so would it always be.
Tul and his bier, his chosen companions, stood behind the firing lines. Armed with round shields, wrought in the shape of a scowling countenance, and carrying heavy runeblades, his bier was composed of proven warriors, those who had already sung their death-song and consigned their souls to the Underearth. Unlike the Pyredrakes, they wore white robes, and their masks were of silver rather than iron.
Tul himself wore the golden mask of an elder, and beneath it his skin and hair were marked with the sacred ashes of his ancestors. He carried a double-handed runeblade cradled in the crook of his arm. It was an old thing, hungry for death, and nameless, as was proper. To name a thing was to give it a will of its own, and a wilful weapon was one that could not be trusted. There were many named blades in the shadow-vaults of the Gazul-Zagaz, and there they would remain, until Shyish sank into the twilight sea.
Tul and his kinband had fought their way through the ruins and up the steps of the ziggurat over the course of several days, leaving a trail of dead and dying beastkin in their wake. The ruins were full of the creatures – thousands of them, breeding in the dark – and the duardin had roused them all as they advanced deeper into the city. But what were beasts, to the warriors of the Gazul-Zagaz?
‘The gor flee, elder,’ Hok, his tolvan, said. ‘Our fire warms their bones overmuch.’ His subordinate held a heavy stone tablet, upon which the names of the honoured dead would be carved upon victory – or just prior to defeat. Either way, their names would be recorded, and added to the Long Dirge of the Gazul-Zagaz.
‘They will come again and in greater numbers,’ Tul said, tugging on his ash-streaked beard. ‘They are brief things, and determined.’ The warriors of his bier nodded sagely at this. They were all veterans of a thousand similar skirmishes, their birth-swords grown dull on the bones of gor and ik – beastkin and daemons, as the Azyrites called them.
As he thought of their allies, a flash of silver, somewhere out in the dark below, caught his eye. He heard the sound of a hunting horn, and the shriek of one of the Azyrites’ great beasts. Then, cerulean light sparked, and he heard the whipcrack of a boltstorm pistol.
‘The Swiftblade is close,’ Hok said, his disapproval evident.
Tul smiled sourly. Hok was referring to their ally, Lord-Aquilor Sathphren Swiftblade. Tul’s mind tripped over the unfamiliar title. It had too many words, and unnecessary ones at that. Why advertise the swiftness of your blade to the enemy? Surely it was better for such things to be a surprise. Then, there was much about the Stormcasts, and Sathphren in particular, that was confusing.
‘As he promised,’ Tul said. Hok bowed his head, accepting this chastisement with grace. Confusing or not, the Azyrite was an ally. He had helped the Gazul-Zagaz, and so, they would help him. An oath for an oath, a debt for a debt. ‘By sorrow fail, and by sadness bound,’ he murmured, reciting the ancient oath – the first oath and the last – made to the Lord of Underearth by his folk, in the days before the coming of the Undying King.
‘An oath for an oath,’ Hok said, and the others murmured agreement.
‘As it was, as it must be,’ Tul said, finishing the oath. He glanced up towards the pyramid’s summit, where a massive, four-sided archway of
carven stone topped the edifice. Shaped to resemble nothing so much as a great flock of birds, rising skywards to a single point, the archway sat atop a circular dais of curious construction, marked by runic sigils unfamiliar to Tul’s eye.
Sathphren had called it the Corvine Gate. Once, the realmgate had linked this part of Shyish to somewhere in Azyr, the Realm of Heavens. Tul let his gaze rise to the stars overhead, where Azyr bled into Shyish, and every other mortal realm besides. The Gates of Azyr had been sealed long ago, as the Ruinous Powers spread their baleful influence through the realms. Now, at last, they were opening once more.
Tul could not say whether that was entirely a good thing or not. But an oath was an oath, and he would pay his folk’s debt, as he must. ‘They’ve caught the gor,’ Hok said, drawing Tul from his contemplation of the stars. Hok leaned over and spat. ‘Will they drive them back to us? It is only fitting.’
Tul shook his head. ‘No. They are selfish and careless, these Azyrites.’ Then, that was often the way of stars – heedless of all that they shone on. One could not expect them to hold to the niceties of civilised folk. ‘Sathphren will take them for himself.’
His warriors grumbled at this, equal parts annoyed and amused. The Azyrites – these Stormcast Eternals, as they called themselves – were powerful allies. And faithful, in their own way, to their own god, Sigmar. The Gazul-Zagaz knew him as the Starlit King, and it was said that he had walked among them often, in days of antiquity. Before Gazul had fallen silent, his temples cast down and his folk scattered.
Powerful, yes, and faithful, to be sure. But like children. Careless and eager. But that was no bad thing, perhaps. For children soon grew up. Then, perhaps, they would truly be allies worthy of the Gazul-Zagaz, in fact as well as in deed.
He squinted, catching sight of more silvery flashes in the dark. Eerie cries echoed up from the ruins. The Swiftblade fancied himself a hunter, Tul knew. Well, he would find plenty of prey this night. He smiled: a hard, merciless expression.
Beast howls filled the night. A tide of filth flowed up the steps of the pyramid, surging forwards on hooves and claws. They made a great noise as they came, almost joyous in its intensity. As if they knew the oblivion that awaited them, and welcomed it.
‘Uzkul-ha,’ he said, softly. He lifted his sheathed blade over his head. ‘Uzkul-ha!’
‘Uzkul,’ came the response from his warriors. Death.
‘Uzkul! Uzkul! Uzkul!’
Click here to buy Hallowed Knights: Black Pyramid.
A Black Library Publication
First published in Black Library Events Anthology 2017/2018 in Great Britain in 2017.
This eBook edition published in 2018 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.
Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Jake Murray.
A Dirge of Dust and Steel © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2018. A Dirge of Dust and Steel, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-78030-745-9
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
See Black Library on the internet at
blacklibrary.com
Find out more about Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe at
games-workshop.com
eBook license
This license is made between:
Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and
(2) the purchaser of an e-book product from Black Library website (“You/you/Your/your”)
(jointly, “the parties”)
These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase an e-book (“e-book”) from Black Library. The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:
* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:
o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;
o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media; and
* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.
* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:
o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;
o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;
o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;
o 3.4 you attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.
* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.
* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.
* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.
* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.
* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.
* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.
* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.
grayscale(100%); -moz-filter: grayscale(100%); -o-filter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
